Jamie Nye: Roughriders thankful Ottawa skipped on Corey Mace

A ‘Thank You’ note to the Ottawa Redblacks should be mailed as soon as possible!

On a day when Ottawa announced the firing of head coach Bob Dyce, Corey Mace’s Saskatchewan Roughriders wrapped up a first place season.

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What is the significance, you may ask.

Well, after the 2022 season, when Paul LaPolice was fired late in the season, new General Manager Shawn Burke went out to look for a new head coach.

By the time he’d whittled the list down to a final three, he landed on his eventual hire, Dyce.

The other two who just missed out were Mark Washington and Mace.

A year later, the Roughriders Jeremy O’Day was in a similar situation and, thanks to Burke, Mace was available and more than willing to make the jump to head coach of the Roughriders.

It’s been a perfect match.

Mace’s 21 victories in his first two years as a head coach have only been bested by one other person in franchise history. Ken Miller hit 22 wins as head coach in 2008 and 2009 after winning a Grey Cup as Kent Austin’s offensive coordinator in 2007.

Mace didn’t inherit such an enviable situation.

Instead, he took over a team who missed the playoffs in back-to-back years and was in serious need of a retooling.

And the tools have been brought in.

Actually they have an abundance of them. The Roughriders have the deepest roster in the league, as evidenced by the bundle of backups who have rotated in and nearly defeated the Bombers and Lions, who were sporting starters with something to play for.

Mace and O’Day have worked in lock-step to make the Roughriders the feisty, resilient and deep team that is now one win away from its first Grey Cup appearance since it won the trophy in 2013.

I don’t care to think about where the Roughriders would be if Burke made a different decision in December of 2022 and hired Corey Mace to lead the Redblacks.

Yes, maybe it would be Buck Pierce leading the Riders, but there was speculation that Pierce called the Riders before they made their decision to hire Mace to tell them he wasn’t quite ready to leave Winnipeg.

Then who would have been hired?

A problem O’Day is happy he didn’t have to worry about, because he knocked it out of the park with Mace.

There is no doubt in my mind Mace should be the coach of the year in 2025. There was a good case to be made he should have been the coach of the year in 2024, but the votes went toward Jason Maas.

Mace has command over the locker room. He knows what they need before the players know what they need. And this season his game management has been stellar compared to the blemishes and criticisms that went his way in his rookie season.

Three years after passing up on Mace, Burke and the Ottawa Redblacks are back on the hunt for a head coach.

Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, the Riders know they have Mace locked in for at least three more seasons and at the age of 39, they’re hoping for many more beyond that.

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